Druze

Druze are an ethnoreligious group mainly located in Levantine states such as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. The Druze religion originated in the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, but has many features of gnosticism, neoplatonism, in addition to the Abrahamic religions.

History
The Druze religion is centered around Jethro, whom they see as their prophet. It incorporates the teachings of Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, and the Arab philosophers Hamza ibn-Ali ibn-Ahmad and al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. The religion may have originated in the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, but it is also a mixture of Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Pythagoreanism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Druze believe that God manifests himself in a human form and in reincarnation, and through successive reincarnations, the soul is united with the "Cosmic Mind".

Under Muslim rule, the Druze were considered infidels and not Muslims, and Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir tried to exterminate the Druze people. In Antioch, Aleppo, and northern Syria, Druze were exterminated by the Fatimid Caliphate, and the Mamelukes and Ottoman Empire later continued this campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Druze. These actions caused the Druze to live in the Jabal al-Druze mountains and other isolated areas in close-knit communities, and they had their own culture. The Druze people fought for representation, and Walid Jumblatt championed the Druze in politics in Lebanon during the 1970s. In the Lebanese Civil War, they fought alongside the Palestine Liberation Organization as a part of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), and they fought against Syria, Israel, and the other forces in Lebanon. The Druze militia also fought the US Marine Corps troops stationed in Beirut, so the US shelled their positions. The Druze people continued to suffer during the Syrian Civil War, when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and al-Nusra Front attacked Druze people in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Many Druze supported the secularist Syrian Arab Republic, and they served in the Syrian Arab Army.

Today, there are 700,000 Druze in Syria, 215,000 in Lebanon, 140,000 in Israel, 125,000 in Venezuela, 43,000 in the United States, 32,000 in Jordan, 23,000 in Canada, and 19,000 in Australia. In the US, Canada, and Australia, they speak English, in Venezuela they speak Spanish, in Israel they speak Hebrew, and in all of the Arab countries they speak Arabic.